Mr. Hughley – what is the Brookhaven Chamblee Home Owners and Neighborhood Business Alliance? Do you have a website? Who are your Home Owners, Neighborhoods, Business members? You've been using this name for years to drum up media attention. Do you have a website? You give the impression you are an "alliance" of one.

Guarantee you won't get an answer.

Usually most people that show up to public meetings when they believe they are going to lose something. Historic Brookhaven, had Rep. Lindsey 'show up,' to protect their brand, the County Had Bruce Bowers 'show up' to block Brookhaven.

The County is fearful that soon Tucker, Stonecrest, perhaps other places will wish to incorporate. Wouldn't it be easier to simply listen to the will of the People?

@ Stan (aka Stan Segal, C4ND Board member) - Surely you jest, when you pose such a question.... given the lack of transparency and limited inclusion of those outside the C4ND circle when it came to "DICTATING" what was and was not "Brookhaven".... and the cherry-picking of commercial property to serve YOUR own interest, to the detriment of others!

Although, I am not surprised that you have "difficulty" understanding... given that in one breath you mention the right to vote while at the same time, YOU were a part of the group denying others the right to "vote" or rather to decide their own neighborhood destiny. Don't trivialize those opposed to YOUR self-serving agenda/actions as merely fighting to deny you the right to vote... when in fact, WE WERE HAVING TO FIGHT FOR OUR OWN RIGHT TO HAVE INPUT IN THE MATTER. Though, I still don’t have a right to vote on this matter that will negatively impact me financially… so I wonder if that makes you a hypocrite.

PS - When you want to do something that will potentially impact others in a negative manner, I suggest you include as many stake-holders in the discussion at the beginning of the process.... then you won't have to "Fight" so hard for "YOUR" right to vote.

"Now the hard work begins to get folks excited about a having more influence and control over their tax dollars and services in the Brookhaven area."

The only "control" would be that of those in government Jacobs does serve.

Think residents "don't like the DeKalb County Commission" for a reason? Think it could be because their governance of Brookhaven has been poor and they raised our taxes 26%?

What "power" do you see Rep. Jacobs grabbing?

Not another layer - services transfer from County to new city.

"This is nothing but a sneaky power grab by Mike Jacobs..."

Not quite. He is still low man on a very tall totem.

Yes, power bills will increase by a small amount, however property taxes will decrease by a larger amount, right?

Shouldn't you analyze the bottom line for citizens rather than pull out one change?

Hello Dean,
I am just a guy that stumbled across a calculator. More of us should try doing that.
If you can direct me to a source to accurately calculate anything regarding income and expenditures, as it applies to the city AND the inhabitants, I would gladly post the findings of a controlled scenario. To date, I have been unable to find ANY reliable source of information - other that the PSC calculator. This is why this effort has seemed so unorganized to me. The minute you think you understand it, it changes. Just an observation.

Thank you Dean. I would have hoped to see the differences be a bit more profound. I think in an article where Rebecca Chase Williams stated some numbers something like there is now a surplus of $131K (down from $261K a little while ago), since you seem to have the formula pretty well figured out (sigh), could you please look at the revisions to the CVI and see if you can figure out what millage rate is currently being used to arrive at the surplus that is now being shown? I tried, and got confused. THANK YOU!

The millage rate used is, and has been, the 3.35 ceiling. The millage rate didn't change on this latest revision, it was the removal of the Plaza Fiesta parcels that reduced the amount of the digest and consequently the revenue ( assessed value of property in the Brookhaven footprint * the 3.35 mils )

Mr. Dean, I am not following you, I am not understanding your descriptions on my tax template.

My brief inspection of properties in city of Dunwoody show that property values vary based on DeKalb County valuation, remaining DeKalb County billed taxes, and DeKalb County school taxes. From what I saw, most reductions seem to result from lower assessment values from DeKalb County. Many properties with static year to year values have had a slight increase on the city side.

It would be helpful if you provided line item information from an on-line line tax bill that we could see property value, line item, millage, values, etc. Looking for legitimate, tangible documentation for comparison purposes if you can make it available.

Man . . . Them hamburgers with thin sliced onions and pickles and yellow mustard are excellent!

I can answer your question for you Mr. Silver, property taxes will go down a touch because it is written right into the charter, and they will not go up in the future without citizens having a chance to vote on the issue. We have the examples of our neighbors in Dunwoody, Sandy Springs and the other new northside cities to examine too, their taxes have not been gouged like Dekalb did to ours last year (a 26% increase), and their city governments have been much more responsive to them than DeKalb has been to us.

This isn't a partisan issue Mr. Silver, it is a bad government issue, we are tired of DeKalb's poor governance, we will continue to fight to change it but incorporating insulates us a bit from the bad governance in the mean time.

Just curious Dean, what is your bad govt story? Also insulated from what? And speaking of taxes just before the property tax increase they mentioned the deficit was approximately 35 million. Duwnoody had gotten 20 to 25 million and Chamblee took another 5 to 7 million. I kind of see a correlation. An even odder outcome was the cops who used to patrol Dunwoody and the Chamblee annexation now patrol the Brookhaven area. Brookhaven ended up with a huge drop in crime while Dunwoody and Chamblee saw relative little change.

I usually think of deficit as the revenue minus expenses. The numbers you quote are revenue numbers and should have been offset by reduced expenses as a result of no longer providing city services. I would agree that it's not a one for one relationship, as some overhead remains with the county. But decrease in expenses should have been in the 70-80% range offsetting a good piece of the revenue loss. So the deficit numbers don't correlate, unless DeKalb didn't cut any variable cost out of their infrastructure.

Mr Silver, you are correct in that we don't know who will be mayor or a council member.
The thing is, we do know who is our County CEO and County Commissioners are. Their constant bickering and bloated government is what started this movement.

Mr. James, regardless of party lines, there are a lot of folks out here that are not happy with the formation of a new city. It is a common sense issue . . .

After being Decatur all day, those hamburgers are an exceptional treat!